Product Description

A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature starts by explaining the conventional system of abbreviations for the Scrolls. Then it helpfully lists specifically where readers can find each of the Scrolls and fragmentary texts from the eleven caves of Qumran and all the related sites, using the officially assigned numbers of the text. Fitzmyer supplies information on study tools helpful for scholars: concordances, dictionaries, translations, outlines of longer texts, and more, and briefly indicates electronic resources for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Part of the Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature.

Publisher's Description

Many scholars wishing to consult a specific text in the Dead Sea Scrolls encounter a very specific difficulty: finding where it has been published. The scrolls are found in many publications, especially in the 39 volumes of the series ???Discoveries in the Judean Desert.??? Here they are not published in any systematic way, but in the order in which they were ready for publication.

Joseph Fitzmyer seeks to remedy that situation. His A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature starts by explaining the conventional system of abbreviations for the Scrolls. Then it helpfully lists specifically where readers can find each of the scrolls and fragmentary texts from the eleven caves of Qumran and all the related sites.

Fitzmyer supplies information on tools of study helpful for scholars ? concordances, dictionaries, translations, outlines of longer texts, and more ? and briefly indications electronic resources for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This winning guide makes navigating the sprawl of scrolls and information much more straightforward.

Do not read the title of this book and think it is a general or beginner's guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). In order to make full use of this book you would need to be able to read the DSS in the original language and be multilingual as well as have access to a number of major libraries which house the 1000?+ titles listed here. If you did not own the complete DSS the book could guide you as to what you need and what your options were. The book is mainly aimed at post graduates who needs an extensive. bibliography concerning all things Qumran or need to source a particular document. Of passing interest to the layman could be the following; the mention of software programs and websites in ch.13 which can provide the text and translations etc; the book helpfully provides more than one name by which many documents are known and should you be looking for a particular text makes it easier to find. So this is a highly specialised book with an advanced audience in view which just so happens to have a potentially misleading title.